Wild Horse Mesa is located south of San Luis, in
Costilla County, in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. The
sunny, fertile, alpine valley is about 150 miles long and 75 miles wide,
surrounded by the San Juan, La Garita and Sangre de Cristo mountain ranges.

Wild Horse
Mesa (also known as San Pedro Mesa) covers about 75 square miles, a few miles south of San Luis,
near New Mexico. The mesa area is home to about 150
wild horses (mustangs), broken into 9 bands, roaming on private lands.
They are descendents of horses used by Spanish explorers
(conquistadors), brought to America in the 1500's. Spaniards began
bringing horses and cattle to North America starting in 1493, after Columbus
landed in 1492. Spanish explorer Vazquez de Coronado visited this region,
crossing northern New Mexico, looking for the Seven Cities of Gold in his
expedition of 1540-1542.

Native American Indians acquired
horses in the 1600's. According to tribal historians, the Ute
Indians acquired horses from the Spanish in 1580. Tribal history
states that captive Utes escaped with horses from Santa Fe in 1637, making the
Utes the first Native Americans to introduce the horse into their culture.
Santa Fe became the capital of the New Spain province of Santa Fe de Nuevo
Mexico in 1610.

Colorado
has 4 wild horse herd management areas, on public lands in western Colorado,
managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Only about 970 wild horses
remain on Colorado public lands, with 420 planned for removal, leaving only
550. Wild horses in western Colorado are descendants of escaped and
released horses from farmers, ranchers, miners or cavalry soldiers. Only 3
herds, with less than 600 horses, remain in New Mexico, down from 8 herds with
6,000 horses in 1974. There are no wild burros in Colorado. Under
Colorado law, wild horses are not considered wildlife, therefore the Division of
Wildlife is not responsible for managing them.

The Rio Grande
River flows south through the valley to Mexico. The elevation of San
Luis is 7,980 feet. The mesa
ranges from about 7,900 feet to 8,800 feet, with a few peaks at 9,200
feet. Snow-capped Mount
Blanca Peak towers at 14,345 feet to the north, and
Culebra Peak, rises to 14,047 feet to the east on Cielo Vista Ranch.

This beautiful
high desert valley has evidence of human habitation for 11,000 years, including the
Anasazi. It was home for the Ute Indians, Navajo, Comanche, and Jicarilla
Apaches. The Ute band from the San Luis Valley, the Capote Utes,
now live on the Southern Ute Reservation, near Durango, in the four
corners region of southwest Colorado. You can learn more about the Ute
Indians at the museums in San
Luis and Fort
Garland and Montrose. You may see Indian dancers and artists at special events,
pow wows,
fiestas, fairs and rodeos in the region, including Santana Days in San
Luis, the last weekend in July. The Indians hunted wild game in the area
for hundreds of years. Look for arrowheads while hiking. They
have a website at SouthernUte-NSN.gov
and a radio station at KSUT.org.
The state of Utah is named after the Ute Indians. Some local ranchers
raise Navajo Churro sheep, an ancient, hardy breed, brought to the New
World by Spanish explorers for meat and wool.

The
San Luis Valley is now home to
farmers and ranchers, many families have been there for generations. Crops
grown on 450,000 acres include potatoes, alfalfa, wheat, barley, oats, spinach, cabbage, peas, beans,
peppers, carrots and
lettuce. Livestock includes mostly cattle, but also hogs, sheep and
goats. Energy farming includes oilseed crops such as canola and
sunflowers, used to make bio-diesel fuel. Algae farming is being studied
as another bio-fuel. Solar panel farms are also gaining popularity.

The
valley is also attracting real estate investors and people looking
for a great place to build a vacation home or cabin, retirement home or just buy
some affordable land where they can visit or bring their camper or RV to relax
and escape city life. San Luis is the oldest town in Colorado, founded in 1851, with a
population of about 800. It was part of New Mexico Territory until
1861, when Colorado Territory was established. Colorado became the 38th state in
1876. San Luis is the Costilla County seat, and is rich in
history and culture. Adobe homes, churches, town plazas and outdoor
adobe ovens (hornos)
are found in the area, along with lush green crop fields irrigated by gravity controlled,
community operated ditches and canals (acequias). Costilla County is sparsely populated with
about 3,600 people.

The
East Fork Trail of the North Branch of the Old Spanish Trail runs along the east
side of Wild Horse Mesa, heading north along the Sangre de Cristo
mountains. This historic trail between Santa Fe and Los Angeles followed
old Indian trails, on a difficult 1,200 mile, 2-month journey. Pack
mule trains brought trade goods west, including live sheep, wool blankets from churro
sheep, serapes, furs, and tanned hides, and brought mules and horses
east, between 1829 and 1848. Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821,
and claimed control of western Colorado. During the Mexican-American War,
1846-1848, the United States took control of Colorado. After the war, wagon roads on
other easier routes ended the use of the trail. The Old Spanish Trail (map)
was designated a National Historic Trail in December 2002. Old
Spanish Trail video. There are stories of lost gold mines and
caches filled with gold or supplies, including the Lost Spanish Mine of Culebra
Peak. A former gold mine, 4 miles northeast of San Luis, operated by Battle
Mountain Gold, and then acquired by Newmont Mining, is now closed.

In
1803, the United States bought the Louisiana Purchase from France, including
Colorado, east of the Continental Divide. In 1806, Zebulon Pike explored
Colorado and built a small stockade
at warm springs on the Conejos River, at the Rio Grande. He was met by
Spanish soldiers, who escorted him to Mexico for questioning and then released
him.

Basalt
rock (volcanic lava rock) from San Pedro Mesa was used for milling
stones at corn and wheat mills in San Luis, San Francisco and other
villages along the Rio Culebra. Later, modern milling equipment was
brought in from St. Louis and installed at the San Luis Mill. After gold
was discovered in 1858 in Cherry Creek, the mill
produced flour that was transported by ox-driven wagons to the miners in the
gold fields near Denver and other mining districts. During the Great
Depression, 1929-1939, basalt rock from the
mesa was also used extensively for building construction under jobs programs
from the Works
Progress Administration (WPA). White washed basalt rocks were used to form
the famous hillside landmark sign, "San
Luis Oldest Town in Colorado".

On
the east side of Wild Horse Mesa, Sanchez Reservoir (photo), completed in 1913, was the
fifth largest earth and stone dam in the world at that time. Today it is a
state wildlife area with a 4-mile long, 2,000 acre lake that provides excellent fishing for northern pike,
yellow perch, walleye, trout and catfish. It is a home for water fowl,
including ducks, geese, loons, and grebes, and shore birds, including passerines
and swallows. Other birds in the pinion/juniper and sage brush
habitat of the mesa include Western scrub and pinion jays, rock wren, black-chinned
hummingbird, bushtit and juniper titmouse. On the northwest
side of the mesa, Sanchez Stabilization Reservoir, along Highway 159, is
another fishing and recreation spot, about 4 miles southwest of San Luis.

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Last Update 02/14/2015 09:06 PM

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